Set Fire to the Rain
by scalesandfishnails
Summary: Quinn Fabray's life is a mess. She's sixteen, she's pregnant, and now? Her dad's a zombie. Lima is in danger of turning into ground zero for the zombie apocalypse everybody's been waiting for, but what can a simple ex-cheerleader do? Evidently, convincing a travelling alien with a big blue box who calls himself the Doctor to help is a good step in the right direction. GLEE/DW
1. How It All Began

_My name is Lucy Quinn Fabray. I'm sixteen years old. I used to be a cheerleader at my high school, and the most popular, beautiful girl you would ever meet. Now, all I'm good for is starring on _Sixteen and Pregnant_. But right now, that's the least of my worries._

_ My dad is a zombie._

_ It all began a week ago. My boyfriend was coming over to have dinner with my family. It was going to be a great night, and maybe seeing how nice and gentlemanly he was would soften the blow when my parents found out that I was expecting. But my dad suddenly fell ill, and those plans had to be cancelled. We took him to the hospital, and his condition improved enough to be discharged. Then we brought him home._

_ I can hear him. Mum locked him in the basement. He likes to growl and groan and bang on the door, and I don't think either of us have slept well in ages. My grades are going down. I can barely sing in glee club, my throat is so dry. I'm a wreck. This isn't how my life was supposed to be._

_ But that still isn't the only weird thing that's going on around here._

_ Yesterday, I saw a blue police telephone box on the corner of our street._

_ If you don't know what's wrong with that, let me dish out some hard, concrete facts for you. We don't have police telephone boxes in America. What's more, I don't think any country has used them since the nineteen-sixties. To add onto that, I know what our street looks like, and it's never had a police telephone box on its corner before. I tried to go inside it, but the doors wouldn't budge. I walked round and round it, but that was about as useful as it sounds. I was so frustrated. Nothing about it made any sense._

_ Most especially the man who flew it._

_ Yes._

Flew_ it._

_ He calls himself the Doctor. Doctor who? I honestly have no clue. On top of being sixteen and pregnant and my dad being a zombie, I have to take care of a madman with a box. See, what my mum doesn't know, is that Dad isn't the only one moaning and groaning in the basement. And I'm really not sure how well she'll react to a complete stranger living in the same house as us, but for some ridiculous reason, I trust the guy. Maybe his head isn't completely screwed on straight, but there's something about him. Something sad, and something old. Older than both of my parents combined, even though he looks as though he's still in his late twenties. Also, I can't help but say it - he's pretty cute._

_ Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, right. Something sad, and something old. He looks as though he's seen way too much loss in his lifetime. He also seems like he knows what's going on with my dad. He didn't actually want to help me out, though, no matter how nicely I asked him to. That kind of pissed me off._

_ See, he isn't locked in the basement because he volunteered._

_ I, um. Put him there._

* * *

Quinn set the pen down in the folds of her diary and twisted in her seat to peer towards her bedroom door. Her mum should have been fast asleep, which left no obstacles between her and the Doctor. _I've kidnapped a grown man_, she thought glumly to herself. Then she repeated the thought and couldn't help but crack a droll smile. She, Quinn Fabray, sixteen and pregnant, had kidnapped a grown alien man.

A grown _alien_ man.

"Alright then, _Doctor_," she muttered, pushing herself to her feet and making her way out into the hall. "Let's see if you've changed your mind."

You couldn't call Quinn Fabray a _cruel_ captor. She brewed a nice, steaming cup of tea before she picked her way daintily down the stairs to the basement. She'd have to be careful. Her mum had been extra antsy and chained Mr. Fabray down pretty close to the door, which meant that whoever opened it had a good chance of being grabbed and shaken around. Quinn stepped to one side of the door and nudged it open a crack. When there was no immediate commotion, she opened it wider and bent her head around into the dark room.

There was most definitely her dad, pawing at the floor and smacking his lips together contentedly. The Doctor was chained opposite him, his head leaning back against the wall languidly. For a moment, Quinn panicked and wondered if the zombie had managed to reach the strange man and maybe, I don't know, snack off his foot. Closer inspection revealed, however, that her dad was preoccupied with a rat.

"Oh," the Doctor said, sitting up straighter. "_You._"

"Yes," Quinn responded shortly, steering quite clear of Mr. Fabray as she delivered the tea to the madman. "_Me._ Are you okay?"

"That's a funny thing to ask a man you're keeping prisoner," came the sullen response. Quinn rolled her eyes and set the cup of tea on the floor before unwrapping the chains around the Doctor's wrists.

"I'll let you go as soon as you promise to help my dad," she said lightly. "There. Drink this up."

Silently, the Doctor picked up the cup of tea and took a long sip. Instantaneously, his face lit up. "Did you make this? _Mm_, it's _delicious_."

"I guess some stereotypes are true," Quinn observed amusedly. The madman cocked a wary eye at her.

"What stereotype's that?"

"Well...you know. The English and their tea."

"I'm not English. I'm _Time Lord_. Came from the sky, remember?"

"You have an English accent," Quinn pointed out.

"Oh, bloody humans. You all think everything started off on Earth, don't you?"

"Yeah. Sure." How else was she supposed to respond to that? A few seconds later of staring at each other distastefully, the Doctor suddenly set down his cup and tilted his head at her.

"What was your name again?" he asked, almost kindly, but then again, not quite there. He was her prisoner, after all. She'd hit him round the head with a baseball bat after inviting him home for a cup of tea that she'd only just now made for him.

"Quinn Fabray," she answered. "And that's my dad eating that rat right there. Just to put things in perspective for you."

"I figured that much out for myself. How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

His mouth downturned sharply. "Sixteen and pregnant."

"Wha - " Quinn's eyes widened. "How did you _know_? I'm not even showing yet!"

"I know many things." His eyes measured her face carefully. "You're quite smart for your age, aren't you? Quite pretty, too. Pretty and smart, that's two good things going for you. Why don't you just let me go, Quinn Fabray? You know I can't help you."

"No. No, you're wrong. You _can_ help me. You took one look at my dad and you _knew_ what was wrong with him. You got this...this _look_ on your face. He's my _dad_, Doctor - _please_."

His lips turned down again, but this time it was in a sadness and anger towards himself. He looked away from Quinn, gazing dully at her father as he tore apart the rat. "I would've helped you in the past," he mumbled like a broken child. "But not anymore, Quinn. I've given that all up now."

"Why?" she demanded. "Why would you give up helping people? _Especially_ when they _really_ need it?"

"Because people die," he said. "They die because of me."

"What do you mean?"

His eyes faltered to the floor. "I had friends who travelled with me. Good friends. Wonderful friends. And if only I had left them alone, they would have lived out such beautiful, promising lives."

Quinn shook her head. "I'm not asking you to kill me. I'm asking you to _help_ me. What if my dad's not the only one like this? What if Lima's full of things like him? If you can stop it, wouldn't you want to at least _try_?"

"It's not that simple."

"Yes, _it is_. Think _really_ carefully about what you're going to say next, because that's my _dad_. That's _my dad_. On all fours, drooling pus, _eating a rat_. And I still have that baseball bat handy."

The Doctor raised his head, gazing at Quinn long and hard. A sad smile lifted up the corners of his mouth, and she wished he'd kept on pouting. It was less painful to look at.

"You're a very passionate girl, aren't you?" he said. "You really love your father."

"Of course I do," she managed. She hated that she felt as though she was about to burst into tears, all because the Doctor was being such a frustrating, nonsensical idiot. He kept watching her, as if all her thoughts were written out on the front of her face. Then he wiggled his knees, and the smile widened into a small grin.

"Unchain the rest of me, Quinn Fabray. We have a zombie apocalypse to stop."

That was most definitely one line Quinn had never expected to hear in her entire lifetime. A few minutes later, the chains were loosened and piled next to where the Doctor sat, while he shook out all his long, skinny limbs, claiming that he needed to get some feeling back into them. Quinn knew well enough that the chains had hardly been tight, and that he could have squeezed himself out whenever he wanted to. Maybe that was why she'd known he would help, in a way. He hadn't seemed very dead-set on leaving.

"Okay," she said, having had enough of his boyish shenanigans. "How _exactly_ are we going to stop a zombie apocalypse?"

"Oh, _that's easy_," the Doctor retorted carelessly, waving a hand at her. "We find what's causing it, have a little chat, maybe a little..._physical force_, come to an agreement - everybody lives happily ever after, and the merry Doctor can be on his way."

"What way's that?" Quinn asked dubiously.

"The universe. The stars. You don't think the universe is empty, do you? There are so many more _things_ out there, Quinn Fabray, and they're all calling to me."

"That sounds..._completely_ crazy."

He grinned widely at her. "Well, there's nothing wrong with _that_, is there? _Aha!_ There we go. All arms and legs back in order - _oh_..."

As he hopped up onto his feet, he paused and swayed over Mr. Fabray's head. He was growling in a low, guttural, zombie-ish way, and Quinn was trying her hardest not to look at him.

"You're a right mess, aren't you?" the Doctor murmured, bending down so that he was eye to eye with the zombie. "Are those chains properly tight? I could have easily gotten out of mine, and we wouldn't want that happening with your father."

_So he knew_, Quinn thought to herself. "My mum did that," she said quietly. "She's a lot stronger with her hands."

"Oh, that's good. _Good._" The Doctor swung away from her dad, peering at Quinn. "And does your mother know that there's a...company of _two_ in her basement?"

A simple shake of the head and, instead of looking anything like apprehensive, the Doctor appeared to become even more excited. "Oh, that's naughty. I bet she doesn't make as good a cup of tea as you do, though."

"She makes a nice one," Quinn supplied blankly. She was finding it hard to engage in small, inconsequential talk when her father was only a few feet from her, drooling and groaning and resembling a corpse that had been bleached at least twice. She thought she could see a spider crawling through his hair, but she dared not look closer. The Doctor studied her for a few moments before reaching out to hold her hand gently.

"Quinn Fabray," he said slowly, his eyes darting between the both of hers. "Why don't you make yourself a cup, too? Or I could make one for you. I've been told I give it quite the taste. Then you can sit down and tell me about what your father was like."

Her forehead twitched in a minuscule frown. "You don't want to know that," she said. "Why would you even care?"

"Oh, I care," the madman said sadly. "I always care. Come along now."

It turned out that the tea he made really was quite delicious. But then again, wasn't all tea? Quinn sat at the crisp and clean white kitchen table and sipped at it as quickly as she could without burning her tongue. The Doctor sat opposite her, blowing across the surface of his own tea and watching her, still.

"I'm going to tell you a little secret," he said. "I came here for more than just a visit, and you were quite right - your father isn't the only one in the state that he is. He was the first, of course, but definitely not the last."

"I thought you'd said you'd given up on helping people," Quinn pointed out.

"Oh, I had. I have. But...sometimes I can't resist. My..._conscience_ gets the better of me."

She smiled wryly. "I know that feeling," she said softly before filling her mouth with more tea.

The smile was returned briefly before the Doctor found another subject to latch onto. "_So_," he proclaimed. "Your father. Tell me about him."

"Um. Well, he's...like any other father, really. Protective and...fussy, and likes to sit at the head of the table and talk really loudly." She smiled again at her own words. "He's...very keen on perfection. My whole family is. Sometimes it gets annoying, but...when _things_ like this happen, I can kind of understand why. Chaos is so..._chaotic_."

"But it can be beautiful, too." The Doctor was leaning back in his chair, one ankle crossed over the other. "I've come face to face with a lot of chaos, and it's so much _fun_. If everything in life was perfect, well...might as well give up early on."

Quinn couldn't help but laugh. "You sound exactly like the sort of person my dad would hate."

"Would he hate the sort of person that knocked you up?" the Doctor asked mischievously, his eyes sparkling over the top of his cup. Quinn drew in a sharp breath, hesitating on the answer.

"No," she finally said. "No, he would love Finn. He's _met_ Finn already, briefly. We were all going to have dinner together last week, but...well, _this_ happened."

The madman's eyes narrowed at her shrewdly. She thought he might catch onto her lie - he seemed eerily skilled in that way, knowing everything that he shouldn't - instead, he took a large swallow of tea and scoffed aloud. "The human race nowadays," he said to himself. "Babies at sixteen, break-ups over Twitter...not to mention you were all practically _asking_ for a zombie apocalypse. Some people would think you lot really _want_ to perish in a massive explosion of..._walking corpses_."

She couldn't help but think of Puck when he said that. _Puck_, the cocky, mohawked adaptation of every Fabray's worst nightmare. _Puck_, with his rough, olive skin and hardened football muscles. _Puck_, with his love for video games and pop culture and, most of all, _zombies_. _Puck_, she wryly thought, the father of her baby.

"Trust me," she said, "I'm not one of that 'lot'."

"No," the Doctor mused. "You're far from it. I can tell. A bit of an old soul in a young body."

"Funny. That's what _you_ look like to me."

"Oh, that's because I am. _Literally_. Old soul, young body. Hard to explain to someone I've just met. Very complicated."

Quinn leaned forward over the table with a daring smile. "How about to someone who's had you locked up in her basement for a day going on two?"

A beat later, the smile was returned with a wider replica. The following hour did not consist of splendid plans about how to put a swift end to the zombie apocalypse. Instead, sixteen and pregnant Quinn Fabray was regaled with the greatest and most select stories of the Doctor's adventures through space and time, and how, infrequently, he regenerated into a different body. She was amazed that he would ever want to know about her dull, teenage life when he had so much more to look back on as well as forward to. And yet, by the end of it all, he still breathed in very deeply and smiled brightly at her and said, "Maybe I could show you - after all this _zombie_ business. What d'you say?"

She was stunned. "And leave my family and my boyfriend behind?" She shook her head. "It's..._great_ to hear all those stories, but...I don't think I could actually _live them out_." When she saw his smile fade, her heart ached. "I like it here," she added on gently. "Once I get this baby out of me, everything will go back to the way it should be."

"And what's that?" the Doctor asked her. She lowered her head shyly.

"Where everybody stops looking at me like I'm some kind of warning sign," she finally said. "You said that I was smart, and pretty. You're not the only who's noticed that. Smart and pretty gets you far in this world, and far's what I'm aiming for."

"Oh, Quinn Fabray. You don't even know just how _far_ you can go."

She looked up at him quickly, and she realised that _he_ wasn't looking at her as though she was a warning sign. He seemed to see right into her, actually. Right down into the depths of her soul. It alarmed her.

"Weren't we supposed to be working out how to stop the zombie apocalypse?" she asked brusquely, sitting up straighter and smoothing down her skirt.

The sadness returned to his face. "I lied," he said. "I'm not going to help you, Quinn Fabray. There is nothing to help. Rule number one - the Doctor _always_ lies."

Her heart dropped. "You can't do that," her voice rose. "You can't just sit there and get my hopes up and then _lie_ to me like that."

"I'm a thousand-year-old Time Lord." He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. "I can do what I want."

He'd made a bad mistake. Quinn Fabray might have been small and young and messed-up and naïve, but one you got her angry, she was a furious fireball that could barrel you into the next galaxy and beyond. She flew to her feet and then right up to him, jabbing a fingertip into his chest.

"You _listen to me!_" she snapped. "I don't _care_ how many friends you've _lost_ helping other people, but you know what? If that's reason to give up on doing so much _good_, then you have _no right_ to criticise humanity. We have _soldiers_ abroad, fighting wars for us and losing _their_ friends, but do they ever stop because it _hurts?_ _No!_ What about Jesus Christ? _Huh?_ _My_ Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ! He _sacrificed himself_ for humanity, he _died_ for us, and he would do it _over and over again_, no matter how many of _his_ friends died! So don't you stand there and say _oh, I'm a Time Lord, I can get away with anything_ - what even _is_ a stupid _Time Lord?_"

The Doctor silently gaped at her, but from somewhere above, her mother's voice floated out. "Quinnie? Quinnie, is everything okay?"

"What do you think, Doctor?" Quinn gritted out. "Is everything _okay_?"

A shadow dropped over his face, and he bent down to her level. "You have _no idea_ what happened to them," he hissed. "I had to watch them - _all of them_ - as they all left or died, and it's all because of _me_."

She laughed in his face. "So is that what it all comes down to? _You?_ How could you be so _selfish?_ They didn't die for you. Not if what you told me is true. They died for something so much more than that. Don't you think that's pretty _far?_"

The sound of hastled footsteps came down the hall outside the kitchen. A moment later, the door flung open and Mrs. Fabray stood in its wake, gawking at the stranger standing opposite her daughter. Her hand began to grope for something blunt and heavy.

"Who are you?" she squeaked. "Quinnie, _get away from him_."

"It's okay, Mum," Quinn retorted without looking. "He's just a crazy man I've been keeping in our basement."

"Wha - "

The Doctor's face magically transformed yet again, turning into a bright, friendly shade of reassurance and joy. "_Mrs. Fabray_," he declared, and he swept across the kitchen floor to stop short of her and apply airy kisses to both of her cheeks, despite her stuttering and stammering. "I'm the _Doctor_. I'm a, um..._friend_ of your daughter's. Lovely place you have here - sorry about your husband - I'm going to try and fix that, mind you." He looked over his shoulder at Quinn. "It only seems fair."

"Wha - what do you - " Mrs. Fabray looked between the two of them, mouth opening and closing. "Somebody _please_ explain to me what is going on."

A slow smile crept across Quinn's face.

"Mum," she said, "the Doctor and I are going to stop the zombie apocalypse."


	2. The Doctor, the Cheerleader & the TARDIS

_The Doctor is unbelievable. He's more than just a madman - he _has_ to be - because everything he told me about is real. He showed me his T.A.R.D.I.S., which is the blue police telephone box I wrote about before. He actually travels space and time in that big blue box. And it's really _big_! So much bigger on the inside. He invited me to look, and it was like I could smell centuries of the love and history that fuelled it. I know I'm not the first human being who's ever been inside it, and maybe I won't be the last, but...think about it. How many people can say they toured the last Time Lord's T.A.R.D.I.S.?_

_ Not many, but Quinn Fabray is now one of them._

_ There's just one little problem, though._

_ Okay...one _huge_ problem._

_ I don't think the Doctor can really fly his own 'ship'. On the great ranking of Lamest Things in History, I think that marks up as #1. He offered to give me a lift to school. That was all it was going to be. "I'll show you how the T.A.R.D.I.S. works," he said. "I'll get you to school in two minutes, no hurry," he said. "You'll be right on time," he said._

_ I forgot rule number 1, I guess. The Doctor _always_ lies._

* * *

The moment Quinn stepped out of the T.A.R.D.I.S., she _knew_ something was up. The sky was still blue, the air was still air, and she was still her, but there was just something in the surrounding scenery that was terribly, _terribly_ wrong.

"_Voilà!_" the Doctor announced, swinging his lean torso out of the blue doors just behind Quinn. His eyes scaled what was most definitely McKinley High in front of them, and then his grin slowly began to fade. "That's not right…no, that's not right _at all_."

Before Quinn could badger him for an elaboration, he disappeared back inside the T.A.R.D.I.S., and she was left to stand in the cold, gloomy air, hugging herself and trying to make sense of what was happening. The school appeared completely deserted, even though it was mid-day, and there were very obvious black char marks across its walls. A stray newspaper page was flapping its way across the street, and after a moment of inner struggle, the blonde ex-cheerleader took off after it. Once she managed to catch it, however, no great information was provided. The paper, too, was charred, except…

"_Doctor!_" she yelled. This was _next week's_ paper. How could she be holding next week's paper? Unless - ?

"_So_ sorry," the Doctor sang, strolling back out of the T.A.R.D.I.S. and trying his best not to appear the part of a chastened schoolboy. "We appear to have travelled a bit into the future, about – "

"A week," Quinn finished through gritted teeth, showing him the burnt piece of newspaper. "We travelled forwards in time _a week_."

His face lit up at her correct answer, and he pointed an excited finger at the paper. "Yes, exactly – may I have a look – ?"

"There's nothing on here. It's all burnt – _a week?_"

"Yes, yes. It could've been worse. It could've been a month. A year. A century!" Despite her reassurances, he nipped the paper from her hand and gave it a good glance up and down. "Now, the question is…what happened here?"

"No," Quinn snapped. "The question is _how are we going to get back?_ I can't be gone for a _week_. I can't – it's not even _possible_ – "

"Oh, Quinn _Fabray_, you'll learn what's possible soon enough."

"I want to go _back_, Doctor. What about my mum?"

"We'll check on your mum in a bit." The Doctor peered up from the newspaper, frowning. "What d'you reckon the day is? Weekend? Week-day? National holiday?"

"I don't know." She didn't like how silent and foreboding the school seemed to her only a week into the future. Where _was_ everyone? Lima was in the middle of nowhere, yes, but there was always someone at hand, crossing the street or yelling at their kid or performing some random musical number on the steps leading up to the school…except for now. Now there was nothing. "Doctor, I don't understand."

"Me neither," he said slowly. Then he turned his bright, childish eyes on her and grinned. "_Let's go investigate._"

Quinn would soon learn that if there was one thing in the world the Doctor loved more than travelling, it was _investigating_, and maybe that was because it involved a lot of travelling, too. They walked down the streets of Lima together, looking and waiting for another soul to join them in the outside world, but there was most definitely _no-one_. At one point, Quinn suggested ringing a random doorbell just to see if everyone was actually still alive, but the first door they reached was never answered.

"We need to check on my mum," she declared. "What if something's happened to her?"

"What, just _her_?" the Doctor asked skeptically. "Not a living soul on the streets, nobody's answering their doors – and you think something's happened to _just her?_"

"That's not what I said. I'd _just_ like to be able to check on my mum after I've _mysteriously_ gone missing for a week!"

They were going in the general direction of the Fabrays' anyway, Quinn thought irritably. What was the big hassle? But while she kept on walking, the Doctor suddenly stopped, and she pivoted on her heel to frown at him. He was standing by a telephone pole, jaw slightly agape.

"What?"

"Come over here," he ordered her. She moved to stand by his side, lifting herself onto the balls of her feet so that she could see at the same level as him. Plastered onto the face of the telephone pole was a poster, and _her_ face was staring back at her. "_Missing_," the Doctor read. "Lucy Quinn Fabray, last seen accompanying a madman with a blue box…I suppose that's me."

"I guess it is," Quinn agreed, dazed. Then she was suddenly turned upon by the Doctor.

"You said your name was _Quinn_!" he cried, looking all sorts of betrayed.

"It _is _Quinn!"

"No, Quinn's your _middle name_ – what's wrong with _Lucy_?"

"What's wrong with Lucy?" Quinn repeated, eyebrows arching. "Seriously? _Everything_ is wrong with that name."

"_Everything?_" the Doctor repeated, aghast. "_Lucy Quinn Fabray_ – that's a _fantastic_ name! What are you now? _Quinn Lucy Fabray?_ Hardly got the same ring at all – "

"It's _my_ name. I'm allowed to do what I want with it."

"That's how it all starts, you know," the Doctor told her, wagging a finger in her face. "Do what you want with your name, then with your face, and your hair, and your _everything_ – "

"And _what's_ wrong with all of that?"

He stopped, blinking at her. She thought he would give up his nonsense, but instead he suddenly dipped forward and stared owlishly into her face.

"Oh _no_," he said, and then suddenly his hands were latched onto her cheeks. "Is this your real face? What about your hair? Is _anything_ about you _real_?"

"_Stop that!_" She smacked his hands away, scowling. "Just because you dye your hair a different colour, doesn't make it _not real!_"

He leaned away, abashed. "No, I suppose not," he agreed. "It's just that…you're quite pretty, Lucy – "

"_Quinn._"

" – why would you want to change anything about yourself?"

The tips of her teeth dug sharply into her bottom lip. She was pretty _now_, but she hadn't been pretty _then_. Overweight, bespectacled, brunette and made fun of at every corner – _that_ was who Lucy Fabray had been. And there was _everything_ wrong with Lucy Fabray. Quinn was perfect. Quinn was who she wanted to be.

"Because people are allowed to change," she finally said, smiling at him condescendingly. "You should know that better than anyone. Don't you swap bodies every time you die?"

"I don't _swap_." But his indignance didn't last very long. He studied her with a long, thoughtful look before waving his hands in the air. "Oh, never mind how very complicatedly human you are. There are more important matters at hand. Like the fact that your town is very mysteriously deserted, you've been missing for a week, your mother will be very angry with me, and – and I'm afraid there's something very, _very_ bad coming down the road towards us."

"What?"

"Actually, I was wrong. There are _many_ very very bad somethings coming down the road towards us. No, don't look." He grabbed her face in his hands. "Lucy Fabray, do you trust me?"

She wanted nothing more than to wrench free and see for herself what was coming down the road, but the more she made a hassle, the nearer whatever those very very bad somethings came. She fought down her panic and stopped herself from trying to peer past the sides of his hands. "_Quinn Fabray_ trusts you."

"Good. Take my hand. Now – _run!_"

Running with the Doctor. Not many had the privilege of being able to say they had run with the Doctor. Quinn didn't know quite how preciously she would look back on that moment, the very first time she ran with the travelling Time Lord. Of course, she looked over her shoulder the moment they started sprinting, and what she saw, she couldn't really believe. A whole shambling horde of soulless, lifeless, pale-eyed and open-mouthed corpses were dragging their feet towards them. They easily fell behind, but when the Doctor and Quinn rounded the next corner, they were confronted with a dozen more. The panic was a lot more difficult to keep down in the face of this.

"_What's going on?_" she demanded of the Doctor, whose face was as white and blank as the clouds above.

"Many, many," he mumbled, "many, _many_ bad somethings. _In here!_"

His curious sonic screwdriver whistled out of his pocket and into his hand, beaming and squeaking at the lock of the nearest house door. It popped open and they moved themselves inside, slamming it shut behind them. They could hear the zombies' nails scraping grotesquely against the wood, their groans muffled but echoing in their ears. Quinn had a terrible stitch in one side, and she suddenly wondered if all this running would be good for the baby.

"The door won't last for long," the Doctor rambled on worriedly. "We need to barricade it, and then…"

"And then what?"

"I really don't know."

Whatever they could set their hands on was placed against the door. Chairs, coats, shelves, shoes. If there was anyone living inside that house, neither of them saw or heard any sign of them. They quickly stepped away from the door when the first splinter cracked its façade.

"We're going to die," Quinn observed flatly. "_I'm_ going to die with a baby in my stomach. At sixteen. Thanks to you."

"Thanks to _me?_ This would've been going on even if I hadn't arrived. It's not as though I caused the zombie apocalypse."

"No. My dad did." She turned her face towards the Doctor. They were standing an awkward six feet from the door, not quite sure what else to do. "What if he…what if he's eaten my mum? What if he managed to break free, and he ate my mum, and he got to other people, and…?"

"No," the Doctor said immediately. "No, your mother would be more responsible than that. And besides, it didn't start with your father. It started with a virus. An alien virus, transmitted from an alien world, but I don't know how…"

She laughed through her teeth. "You just…come whirling into my life talking about aliens and time-travelling and mysterious viruses and…who _are _you? Really?"

"You already know," the Doctor said, surprised. "I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor _who_?"

"Just _the Doctor_. Catchy title, isn't it?"

"But where did it come from?" Quinn asked. "Why do you call yourself _the Doctor_?"

He snorted. "Why do you call yourself _Quinn_?"

She rolled her eyes. "You're never going to get over that, are you?"  
"No," he said. "I'm never going to stop wanting to know what damaged you so much that you wanted to change who you are so extremely."

Her sharp gaze faltered. "Why do you _care_ so much?" she asked him. "I've been a total _brat_ to you."

"Have you?" He smiled at her. "I've only seen you be an extremely clever and ambitious girl, with a passion for the things and people that she loves. Not really the definition of a 'brat', is it?"

"But you would hate me," she insisted. "If you saw…if you saw what I was like every day, at school, you would hate me."

"Maybe," he said. "I wouldn't know. But I doubt that would be the real you, would it?"

"No." She looked away from him, back at the door. "But that doesn't matter. I'm horrible."

He was about to say something more, but a fist punctuated the end of the discussion as it flew through the wood. They both leaped backwards with a yelp, their hands finding each other.

"What are we going to do?" Quinn demanded. "We can't just stand here and wait for them to knock that down."

"We need to find some way of escape. Look for a window. Come on."

But the moment they spun around, they found themselves looking down the long, gloomy barrel of a battered shotgun. The Doctor's hands flew into the air in surrender, but Quinn only stared at the boy behind it. Soon, the stare turned into an irritated mixture of disgust and wonder.

"_Puck_," she exclaimed. The father of her baby had his sharp eyes zeroed in on the Doctor.

"Get behind me, Quinn," he said. "Away from this disgusting _creep_."

"_Creep?_" the Doctor reiterated in a high-pitched voice. "Excuse _you_, who exactly is the creep here?"

"He's not a _creep_," Quinn snapped. "He's my _friend_."

"Oh, right, is that what he's told you to call him?" Puck sneered. "I'm not an idiot. You disappear with a guy twice your age in some big blue van and you think I won't know the truth? He's a pervert!"

"Big blue van?" the Doctor repeated, dazed. "Oh, the _T.A.R.D.I.S.!_ No, no, that's not a _van_ – "

"_Shut up_," Puck ordered, cocking the gun higher and aiming it on the Doctor's head. The madman obeyed quietly.

"_Put_ the gun down," Quinn ordered, reaching out and closing her hand around the barrel. "Or I'll _take_ it from you. You _don't_ want to know what a pregnant girl wild on hormones will _do_ with a gun in her hands."

The assailant's aggression faltered, and he blinked at Quinn confusedly. "But he kidnapped you," he said. "You've been missing for a _week_."

"Technical difficulties," she said, shooting an irritable glance at the Doctor. "And it's a long story. _Please_ put the gun down."

After a moment of inner struggle, Noah Puckerman finally lowered the shotgun, looking rather bashful as he did so. Still, he glared at the Doctor with obvious distaste. "Who are you, then?" he demanded. "What've you been doin' with Quinn?"

"Oh, you know," the Doctor said nonchalantly, slowly lowering his hands. "Travelling through time, running away from dead people. That sort of stuff. I just want to ask – what _exactly_ happened while we were gone?"

"What're you talking about? How could you _not_ know?"  
"We just don't," Quinn said sharply. "Tell us, Puck."

"Zombies," he said, gesticulating wildly. "Everyone's become zombies. It started out with Mr. Schuester at McKinley. He started acting all weird, then he was sent to the hospital. After that, he got better, you know? How were we supposed to know there was still something wrong with him? Then he took out Tina Cohen-Chang during glee club, so we _knew_ something was up. The whole town got quarantined, and now there's just a few of us left."

"A few of you? What about Finn? My mum? Santana? Brittany?"

"Yeah, yeah, they're all good. And Rachel and Artie and Kurt and everyone. We're all hiding out at the mall – I can take you to 'em if you want."

Quinn laughed out loud in relief. "Ohmygod, yes. _Definitely_ yes." She flew forward to wrap her arms around his stupid Puckerman neck, but the sound of the door cracking made them all jump to attention. The shotgun was pointed back up.

"Okay, we should go, like, _right now_." He glanced uncertainly at the Doctor.

"He's coming with us," Quinn said immediately. "Trust me. I wouldn't be alive right now if it wasn't for him."

"Alright. See if I care. I came through the window in the kitchen. Last I checked there weren't any of those suckers hanging around there. C'mon."

As they jogged towards the kitchen, Quinn pulled herself up beside Puck, eyeing his shotgun. "Where'd you get that?" she asked.

"Oh. My dad kept it in my mum's bedroom and totally forgot to take it with him when he left. I knew it would come in handy someday."

"Have you…had to _shoot_ anyone?"

"Um. Nearly. But mostly I use it to kinda distract the zombies away from everyone else. I guess I'm the decoy."

"The _bait_, you mean. Everyone's using you as _bait_?"

"Hey," Puck said reproachfully, "I was the only one willing to do it, alright? Your _boyfriend_ doesn't even have the balls. And he's too busy mooching up to Rachel Berry, anyway."

"_What?_"

"No time to lose!" the Doctor intervened, pushing between them to approach the broken window. "Alright, quite small. We're all quite big. _You're_ quite big, how did you get in?"

"Determination and willpower, dude. If you're too sissy to go through, then stay here."

"_Sissy?_ Carrying a shotgun doesn't make you very _macho_, thank you very much."

"Oh yeah? Wanna say that to the gun?"

"_Enough!_" Finn and Rachel? Quinn only had to go missing for a _week_, and he'd forget all about her in favour of that Jewish rhinoceros? "_I'll_ go first. I'm smaller than the both of you."

"Okay, but – be careful. Y'know, for the baby."

"I'll be _fine_." At least, that was what she thought until she approached the window and saw the jagged shards of glass still sticking up from its frame. One point through her belly, and then…she grabbed a frying-pan off the kitchen counter and knocked the rest of the broken glass out of the window. "There. Give me a leg up."

"Alright, princess." Except he didn't give her a leg up. He wrapped his strong, manly arms of football muscle around her and practically tossed her out through the window – and it was pretty hot and romantic until the tossing part. She flailed briefly, struggling to catch a hold of the window ledge so that she didn't actually fall out. Once she was secure, she shot a glare back at Puck, who only shrugged.

"You are _never_ going near my baby," she declared before climbing out. He was right, too. The coast was clear over this side. She dusted herself off in what appeared to be the cramped backyard of the house, and the Doctor soon joined her.

"I hate climbing through windows," he told her. "Absolutely _hate_ it. It's awkward, it's cramped and it's _highly_ inconvenient."

Puck followed suit immediately after, his booted feet hitting the ground with a large _thud_. "Tell the Queen to quit complaining," he told her. "I've been climbing in and out of windows ever since this whole thing began."

"What, running away from all those zombies?"

"Naw. Someone's gotta make the supply runs."

Quinn turned sharply to stare at him. "Doesn't anyone else do anything _at all_?"

"Well, Santana stands guard with a machete, which gets pretty scary around that time of month. Brittany sits in a corner and talks about spaceships and aliens. Rachel walks around telling everyone what to do. Finn just kind of stares adoringly at her. Your mum – "

"Hold on a minute," the Doctor interrupted. "_Spaceships?_"

"Yeah. Spaceships. Brittany keeps saying she saw one flying over Lima a couple of weeks back. Blames it all on the aliens."

"How far away is the mall?" the madman continued. "I'd like to talk with _Brittany_."

"Okay. Whatever." Puck shrugged. "Everyone thinks she's just gone coo-coo from all the stress, but hey, I guess the crazies attract. _Anyway_ – the mall's not too far from here. C'mon, Quinn."

He led them out from the small, cramped yard, over a fence and beyond. While they walked the short distance to the mall, Quinn leaned into his side and pinched his arm. "Be _nice_ to him," she hissed, in reference to the Doctor. "He's done nothing wrong. If anything, _I'm_ the bad guy."

"How come?" Puck hissed back, tilting at an awkward angle as he tried to wiggle his arm free.

"Because I knocked him unconscious with a baseball bat and hid him in my basement so he'd help my dad."

After a moment of stunned staring, Puck broke out into a large grin. "Hardcore," he said, looking her up and down appreciatively. Disgusted, Quinn shoved him away.

"A moment ago, you were villainising the Doctor for doing practically the _same thing_."

"Yeah," Noah grinned, his hips swaggering as he moved, "but _he's_ not my gorgeous baby mama. When you glare at me like that, how can I _possibly_ say you're evil?"

"You _disgust_ me."

"What's that?" He held a hand up to his ear. "Where'd all that _Finn's the daddy, not you!_ junk go?"

"Shut up," Quinn snapped. "At this rate, _neither_ of you are going to be the baby's acknowledged father."

"Maybe Finn and Rachel'll name you the god-mum of _their_ baby, huh?"

"Well then _maybe_ I'll fry up some baby _bacon_."

"Yum, _yum_."

"Is that it?" the Doctor said suddenly. Quinn glanced back at him guiltily. She'd almost forgotten he was there, and what if he'd heard the conversation? What would he think of her? His face seemed void of any judgement, however, so she looked back in front to where he was pointing.

"That's it," she said. "That's the mall."

"And that's the zombies," Puck commented. A drifter group of four undead was shambling in front of the doors. "You guys wait here. I'll draw their attention away."

"You don't have to do that," Quinn insisted, but he shook his head.

"Yeah, I do. Once they catch your scent, they don't let go. I'll let them sniff some gunpowder for a while."

"Why don't you kill them?" the Doctor asked, frowning at Puck. "That's the basic human instinct, isn't it? Kill to survive – especially when they seem to be already dead."

Puck shrugged. "They were people once, right? Besides, a lot of us figure that they're only sick. Sort of like Quinn's dad. What's the point of killing sick people?"

Before either of them could answer, he took off, firing his shotgun wildly into the air. The heads of the zombies turned, teeth bared and hoarse growls rumbling out of their throats. As predicted, they began to drag their feet after Puck, paying no mind to the other two living souls who watched them.

"This is horrible," Quinn said. "How did it all become like this?"

"It only took a week and one ill man," the Doctor murmured. With great effort, he tore his sights away from the retreating form of Puck and looked to the mall. "We have to go inside before they come back. And I'll need to talk to your friend Brittany."

"Do you actually believe her?" Quinn asked. "That aliens caused all this?"

"I'm afraid I do."

"Great. That's just the thing I needed in my life. Hostile aliens."

He almost smiled, and after a while, she let loose a quiet cackle. Before she knew it, he'd taken her hand again, and they took off as quickly as they could to the front doors of the mall.


End file.
